Cheap Space 9...
Will Cheap Space Travel Help Us Get Healthier
I’ve always dreamed of going space. As a kid I had this intuition that if we could all see the earth from way above then maybe we’d all be happier.
Well it turns out that my juvenile optimism may be closer to reality than I thought.
American Astronaut Don Thomas has orbited the earth 700 times and thinks that if more people saw the planet the way he has the better off the world would be. Thomas predicts that in the next 10 years a tourist could pay as little as 10k to see the earth from space. And companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic are doing their part in bringing bulky & expensive technology a little more down to earth.
With space travel eventually becoming available to people other than Astronauts and Billionaires, the benefits may also become more accessible. In a paper published in the American Psychological Association Journal, researchers draw attention to something experienced by astronauts called the overview effect.
According to them, being in space can produce “overwhelming emotion and feelings of identification with humankind and the planet as a whole.” Regularly experiencing wonder and grandeur may be a vital component to our health as well.
Research from UC Berkeley has linked positive emotions associated with feelings of awe to improved immune system function which has a direct effect on health & life expectancy. Earthly things like forests, mountains & art can help produce a sense of something greater than oneself, but space travel may be the ultimate way to generate the kind of awe that makes life longer and happier.
Much like Forest Therapy in Japan & Korea is being used to treat depression, anxiety and other ailments, one can imagine that Space Therapy will do the same & more.